Broaden your scope

Submitted by Haseeb Rabbani (Canada), Dec 4, 2006 at 22:05

As for the 18th century Egyptian and Van Gogh's murder, these are, again, actions of small groups of people for which you are indicting the whole of Islam.

The response to the Danish cartoons was, again, not an accurate representation of all the Muslims. Not all the Muslims were out on the streets protesting, only those you saw on TV. If the protests got violent, which is not acceptable, you STILL cannot indict Islam on the actions of a few. Also, I think the cartoonists should have been a bit more respectful/careful or chosen another topic to make fun of instead of a prophet, and if they had done so, no one would have cared.

All of the protests that turned violent were definitely unacceptable, but violence tends to erupt in mass gatherings, out of confusion or a lack of control or for whatever reason. To indict Islam on these incidents is quite ignorant and unfortunately common.

The Pope's comments were HIGHLY irresponsible, given the time, circumstances and delicate situation of the world when he said it. If these comments were made 10 years ago, no one would have cared. But for the leader of the biggest religion in the world, to use such a quote was, not wrong, but careless. And then the weak excuse put forth explaining why he had used such a quote was quite ridiculous. I'm sure there were a THOUSAND other quotes to choose from that would better illustrate what he claims he was trying to illustrate.

As for Islam, the religion BEGAN with Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) and has been growing ever since. Did you forget about the Renaissance? Did you forget that the Muslim world was well ahead of the Western world in every respect, in the Renaissance, but then shared their knowledge with the West, who, in return, drove Muslims out of their lands? Did you forget about the contributions by Muslims to the many professional fields that exist today?

You CANNOT judge Islam based on the unfortunate events that have been occuring recently, which is what the commoner commonly does. If you want to know Islam (which I highly doubt because you have some ignorant excuse as to why you don't want to learn about a "'religion of the sword"'), then you should know it from the Quran - not a single verse of it, but ALL of it. If you want to see the actions of a person representing Islam, then you should learn about the life of the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh). And don't just learn anough to satisfy/confirm your opinion of Islam, but learn it objectively. This is difficult, which is why most 'Westerners' don't have positive opinions. There are those who do and those who don't, but the majority are the ones who don't really know Islam.

Then we have those people who claim they've learned Islam, but they go searching for verses that may seem 'violent' when read out of context. And when you ask them of their sources, they very foolishly cite some anti-Islam or pro-Other Religion source.

As for the "self-reformation", you're right. The Quran does not reform. The Quran does not change. That is because the Quran is a scripture from God, as is the Bible and the Torah. You cannot ignore some verses of the scriptures and emphasize others as some Christians proudly say that the violent verses of the Bible are not preached, but the ones that are more peaceful are preached. You cannot reform the scriptures to your liking, as doing so would be changing the word of God. By the word "self-reformation" did you mean the reforming of the Bible, an evidence of which are the numerous different copies of the Bible around the world? If this is "self-reformation", then Muslims have no part in it.

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